Topic: Chemistry Lab Technician (Read 193 times)

This is probably the strangest message I have ever written (or that you may have read?).

I am a retired teacher. I taught many science-based subjects, but chemistry was my favorite. After 2 years of retirement, I am getting bored. I have indicated on LinkedIn that I would be interested in working as a labtech, but alas, no luck. Not sure if it's my age but . . . . Or the lack of formal technology training. Or both.

I have thought about going back to college to do a chemistry lab technology program, but not sure if itwould be worth it. It would probably be more of an intellectual endeavor than anything else.

Finding no position is horribly banal presently. Covid. The epidemics may be over in some countries, but the recession only begins. You don't need to search other reasons like age.

Check the unemployment figures, they are terrible, and usually these figures are gross underestimates, like GDP drop is. A better indication is the number of shops that close: earlier hint, more accurate, more reliable. Very few sectors need workforce presently, typically Amazon for their shipment department, possibly agriculture to replace foreign workers. Not exactly lab technicians.

You wrote "bored". Is that your only reason? Or do you seek a wage, a well-equipped lab, colleagues...? Because, well, unpaid work is very easy to find. Only a paid position is difficult!

If you're willing to make science at home, a chemistry lab is expensive. But other sciences and technologies are cheap. Music instruments, electrical engineering... cost little, software even less.

Many companies will disappear in the coming months, so lab hardware will be cheap. It was already so after 2008, you could get excellent used old oscilloscopes and spectrum analysers for 100€.